Talk:Vladimir Peftiev

Sources and "defamatory statements".

Many edits added by user meta:User:Czalex represent defamatory statements, potentially libellous, linked only to tabloid newspapers or unsourced or poorly sourced. Such editions violate rules of biographies of living persons and result into a bias article, thus must be removed. As for now, statements of issue are marked with "unreliable source" and "citation needed" templates.

Many statements link to numerous tabloid reports and accuse Vladimir Peftiev of supporting human rights violations in Belarus, while The European General Court’s judgment of 9 December states that Vladimir Peftiev and his businesses are cleared of all accusations of supporting violations of human rights and backing Belorussian president Alexander Lukashenko. This indicates that edits of issue carry politically motivated and defamatory message, which is unacceptable.

I would suggest making a report at WP:BLPN. --joe decker^talk 04:24, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

@Joe Decker: a report was already made there on 7 December -- two days ago -- with no response. MPS1992 (talk) 15:27, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

@MPS1992: @Felix558: Unreliable content was once already removed, but meta:User:Felix558 undid that edit claiming it must be based on consensus. In this case there can be only one consensus - content must be removed due to it's violation of WP:BLPN.

@94.254.224.84: @MPS1992: @Felix558: meta:User:MPS1992 I totally agree. Building consensus in such case should be achieved based on facts and starting from facts. Reading n-time this article I'm also wondering if WP:NPOV is not violated in accusations.

@94.254.224.84: @MPS1992: @Felix558: I would suggest restoring the article as it was after revision by meta:User:Aneromsinge of 15:04, 7 November 2017‎. As concluded, edits that were made after that by meta:User:Czalex are unreliable.

I agree. The article as of 15:04, 7 November 2017‎ is far from perfect, but at least it avoids this blp problem. PhilKnight (talk) 02:33, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

This is not an issue which requires administrator attention at this time so I'm deactivating the help request. If something comes up from this that requires an administrator, please make a new request or post at the administrators' incidents noticeboard. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:39, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

The information is reliable, citing authoritative sources, namely:

• Official EU documents accusing Peftiev of being a sponsor of the Lukashenka regime (doesn't matter if the accusations were lifted later)
• Malta Today stating that Peftiev may have Maltese citizenship
• Wikileaks
• France24, one of France's top media
• Ogonyok, one of Russia's top magazines
• Charter97, Narodnaja Vola, major independent Belarusian publications

These are reliable sources, removing information citing them is a direct violation of Wikipedia principles. As these were made by anonymous users from Belarus and Poland, I have serious suspects that we're seeing Peftiev's PR at work - which is a serious violation of the rules as well. Совесть имейте.--Czalex 22:45, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

@Czalex: Dear user:Czalex, instead of accusing someone who simply follows Wikipedia rules of being someone's PR, I suggest you take a close, weighted look at WP:BLP rules. You cannot use tabloid journalism as a primary, if any, source of your information and edit an article with it. No matter how reliable a particular paper or magazine seems to you personally, they are still tabloids. You also shouldn't provide sources to something written in other than English, but that's another story. As I can see, version of the article as of November 7 includes all necessary information related to EU official documents, including accusations and lifting those accusations. Wikileaks part of your statement doesn't even include any links to Wikileaks, only tabloids, again. It is clear to me, as it was clear to other users of this talk, that your edits are unreliable and are violating WP:BLP and potentially WP:NPOV. Despite that a consensus of multiple users was achieved on this matter, you are still pushing your agenda (political, personal?). Thus, I'm reactivating admin help request and putting a notice about your actions and this situation at administrators' incidents noticeboard.

Hi, you really don't need to do both. Now that the discussion is open at WP:ANI there's no need to request admin help on this page as well. Also, please be aware that admins are not here to resolve disputes - there are separate dispute resolution processes for that and my view is that that's what's needed here. WaggersTALK 10:23, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

@Waggers: This is not about a dispute regarding interpritation of information, this is a problem of one user vandalizing the page using tabloid press to make a Wikipedia page into some political article. The user have done that more than once already, breaking WP:BLP and having no understanding of doing so. Forgive me that I think this must be addressed.

There is not a single tabloid media outlet among the sources - unless you refer to official EU publications or to France24 as a tabloid. Vandalism is exactly what this gang of anonymous users is doing: deleting properly sourced information. There is a lot of strange and unsourced information in the article about unknown Belarusian scientists and some irrelevant and unknown books written by Peftiev - however, for some [obvious] reason this does not interest these anonymous vandals --Czalex 20:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

@Czalex: As I see it, no one argues that France24 and official EU documents are reliable sources. But apart from those 2 respected sources, article of your edition includes multiple (I count 6) links to Malta Today, which is by every mean a tabloid press. Example one, two, three, and more can be found in article's references. Moreover, in your edition you also reference to whatever this is, whatever this is, whatever this is and whatever this is. Only one of those articles is English and represents some minor tabloid-political website, which is also not exactly a reliable source. Once again I have to problem with France24, EU documents and Wikileaks, but tabloid info must be removed ASAP. @PhilKnight:, you got involved with this article before, could you please give your opinion? 46.216.6.175 (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

@Czalex:- you are not assuming good faith and accusing other editors of vandalism. It is you who is introducing blp problems into the article. I suggest you file a case at the Dispute resolution noticeboard to resolve this dispute. In the mean time, the disputed material should be left out of the article. PhilKnight (talk) 23:32, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

@PhilKnight:Malta Today is not a tabloid ("yellow") newspaper, and these sources are also authoritative: this is Ogoniok, one of Russia's oldest and most respected magazines - the detailed article about Peftiev was written by Pavel Sheremet, one of the best-known post-Soviet journalists; this is Narodnaja Vola, a major independent newspaper of Belarus; this is Charter'97, a widely known Belarusian independent news web site with whom France24 prepared the joint investigation also quoted there

It were these anonymous unknown Belarusian users who came here just for the Peftiev article who doubted my good faith and removed well-sourced links. They should initiate dispute resolution or whatever else, if they please.--Czalex 21:38, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

@PhilKnight: @Czalex: @46.216.6.175: Czalex (talk · contribs), here is a brief list of policies that make your editions a bit controversial. Some of them are not super relevant to the issue, some are.

• Wikipedia:Verifiability#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_sources
• Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Bias_in_sources
• Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability_does_not_guarantee_inclusion
• Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Impartial_tone
• Wikipedia:Gaming_the_system#Gaming_the_use_of_policies_and_guidelines.

Extra important to the issue:

• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources
• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_contentious_material_that_is_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#BLPCRIM.

Czalex (talk · contribs), as for your repeated accusations and implications of subject's involvement, you are not really assuming good faith here, people working with articles are Wikipedia itself is there is usually no conspiracy behind it. However, if it helps you, try this

• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Dealing_with_edits_by_the_subject_of_the_article

and down, it may help you understand few things, especially why it's unlikely for anonymous users to represent someone's interest for agenda.

PhilKnight (talk · contribs), as admin involved, please give a third opinion. 93.84.13.136 (talk) 13:59, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@46.216.6.175: Please explain your accusations - a list of links does not help here at all. The material is sourced, the sources are reliable and unbiased, the tone of the article is completely neutral (apart from the glorification attempts, including unsourced mentions of some unknown Belarusian scientists which for some reasons do not have your attention) --Czalex 21:57, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Czalex: See dispute page. 93.84.50.210 (talk) 13:55, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Dispute resolution initiated

Please discuss here: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Vladimir_Peftiev --Czalex 21:57, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

RfC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

One party, represented by user:Czalex edits page adding sourced information, other party, represented by numerous registered and IP users insists that those edits and sourcing are not suitable for Wikipedia:BLP article, questioning reliability of sources, and their weight for exceptional claims.

Article was reverted backwards and forwards by user:Czalex and user:PhilKnight.

More information can be found on this talk page and in a closed dispute section here Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Vladimir_Peftiev.

46.56.194.162 (talk) 15:42, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note: It seems the DR discussion has been closed inconclusively, with a recommendation to approach the issue through RfC afterall. However, since re-instating the previous RfC would not remedy the deficiencies I noted in my previous close, I recommend that the parties review the WP:RfC requirements and renew the request with a clear and neutral description of the previous dispute and an inquiry or proposal that respondents can address (ideally with an up or down !vote). This is presuming that the parties still are too far apart to form a consensus and neither side has been convinced to give way. If any party wishes to renew the request but is still not confident of their ability to formulate the request properly, please feel free to ping me, or leave a message on my talk page and I will be happy to review the discussion and edit history and compose the request myself, as an uninvolved party. That should address any deadlock which may have resulted from both the DR and the previous RfC having been closed. Snow ^{let's rap} 20:53, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: In order to avoid any further disruption of proper dispute process, please review discussions and help to formulate RfC. Thanks for your help. 46.216.40.23 (talk) 18:07, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Happy to help. I've looked over the edit history, the current content of the article, and the previous discussion in detail, but I must admit that I am still not 100% of your position, so I'll need you to clarify a couple of things so that I can accurately represent your arguments. I see that while the content you seem to object to was introduced over a sequence of edits, the most recent back-and-forth edit war involved one large block of content that was first removed it two edits (by you and PhilKnight, respectively) and reintroduced by Czalex here (in what is currently the second to the most recent live edit). Is it your contention that the entirety of that block of content is unacceptable? If so, there are a lot of individual assertions and sources, and a lot of particular language, that will need unpacking to discuss it all--and looking at the content and sourcing, it looks likely to me that some of this is sufficiently sourced and a WP:DUE and expected topic of coverage. For example, if someone is a massively successful businessperson and has been the subject of EU sanctions, it's just a matter of basic reality that this is the sort of thing that will be covered in their article; the fact that Peftiev publicly and successfully challenged their validity is only more reason for coverage. Some of the sourcing here is primary, on the other hand, and should be improved upon, but I should be surprised (given the topic) if there are not secondary reliable sources covering the sanctions.

None of which is to endorse the entirety of the content or any other single point, but I do think that you and Phil each removing 6k or 7k respectively, without clear indication of the rationale for removing it all (either here on the talk page or in the edit summaries) is overzealous and problematic. If you remove a huge amount of another editor's work, the onus is on you to do it in a way that makes it clear why each element of that content needed to be removed. You can't just slap "libelous" or "blp" in the edit summary and expect that to be sufficient to indicate the scope and reasoning of your objections to several paragraphs of content. That's a reasonable mistake for a newbie, but Phil is an old hand, and I would expect a little more nuance in his approach, if I am being honest.

Anyhow, I reiterate that I don't mean to suggest that you are wrong on any individual issue that you may be bothered about with regard to that chunk of content; you may very well end up achieving consensus for your approach on the lion's share, but first we need to identify what those objections are. If I am reading your objections correctly, then there are two ways to present your arguments in the form of a question that the respondents can provide feedback upon: 1) We can ask respondents to weigh whether certain statements ought to be included or omitted, or 2) We can ask if certain sources are reliable and sufficient to source the content to which they are currently attached in the contested content. If #1 is your preferred approach, please provide me a list of statements from the contested content which you think need to be removed, along with a short (ideally one-sentence) summary of why each such statement would go against our policies, and I will try to organize it all into a form that respondents can easily provide feedback on. Approach #2 simplifies the issue considerably, especially as regards collating RfC respondent feedback when it comes time for the closer to read the consnesus, but it's your call; if you prefer this approach I need you to simply supply a list of sources you find problematic, relative to the content they are being used to source.

What an RfC cannot do is provide feedback to a question so broad as "should all of the contributions of User:Czalex be removed from the article" or "are there BLP problems in the Criticisms section?" We need more specific points of dispute if the consensus-generating function of the RfC is to operate. So let me know which approach most closely aligns with the core of your objection and provide me the afore-mentioned list of your more specific objections and I will take it from there, dividing it all up as best I can and presenting the arguments from both sides. Snow ^{let's rap} 04:36, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: Thank you for you broad and very helpful feedback. FYI: I wasn't the IP to revert the page along with PhilKnight, since I don't want exercise edit warring in any article I'm involved with, putting my effort in discussion instead.

So you could better understand my position, I will first explain my general problem with Czalex's edits, and then I will follow your advice and try to point out particular sources and/or statements RfC can be useful to weight.

Czalex's contribution was introduced in 2 major edits, and just 1 of them provided most (~90%) of problematic material. It makes it difficult to differentiate which of his statements are reliable and which are not and revert article correspondingly. I believe that was the reason why PhilKnight chose to revert article instead of editing back.

In the article's summary, Czalex writes [about article's subject]: "He is being accused of having supported the authoritarian Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, responsible of human rights violations". There is no citation or reference to that statement whatsoever, and this statement is exceptional, which makes it necessary to provide multiple reliable sources. Some of Czalex's sources further in the article assume or may assume that Peftiev did support Lukashenko, but there must be no false balance between those sources (I will speak on those sources a bit later) and decision of the EU court that states that no connection between Peftiev and Lukashenko is found. End-of-day statement must be that Peftiev is not accused by the EU. And BTW, version that was restored in reverts is this, which does include EU sanctions and removal of spoken sanctions.

Czalex seems prone to use his sources for exceptional claims without understanding that sources for exceptional claims must also be exceptional and preferably multiple. Here is an example from the article. Clazex writes [regarding EU sanctions on the subject]: "According to political activist and former presidential candidate Ales Michalevic, Peftiev offered US$ 10 million to "anyone who would manage to remove him from the sanctions list", and refers to this as source. It's a Russian-language online publication, not notable in any way. And this article says that some journalist somehow told that Peftiev offered money to be removed from the sanction list. Is it a serious claim that a businessman offers millions of dollars as a reward for some services? Yes. Is the source provided reliable enough for such claim? No. FYI: I'm a Russian speaker myself and the source article mentions one million of reward, not ten, latter being invented by Czalex entirely. And there are more statements in the article that are too serious to be supported by provided sources. Another dubious source, apart from Russian publications, is Malta Today, which is mostly recognized as tabloid press and does not carry enough weight to support accusations, especially when source articles use words like "allegednly" themselves all the time.

Here is a good version of the article for a current dispute. It is an article of Czalex's edition, but all problematic statements are marked with corresponding templates. I would suggest restoring that version until consensus is reached, but I'm not sure, I could use advice on that. All statements I would negotiate about are marked there, so I would consider that version of article as my list of problematic statements. My suggestions for RfC:

• Should all criticisms statements sourced by unremarkable Russian-language publications be removed? (Reliability of sources does not correspond to seriousness of claims, which are exceptional).
• Should all criticisms statements sourced by Malta Today be removed (source is arguably a tabloid publication dealing in allegations, not suitable for BLP criticism).
• Should accusations of human rights violation be rephrased to indicate clearly that accusations were dropped by EU court?
• If previous are "yes", should the page be reverted to a version before Czalex's edits (removing problems indicated in previous points will erase 95% or Czalex's contribution anyway).

Once again thanks a lot for your help. If I failed to provide anything useful that can help solve the dispute or formulate RfC, please point it out and I will do my best to explain my position and why I believe it is right. Please comment on whether my suggestions for RfC are proper and what are next preferable actions. 46.216.60.140 (talk) 09:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)